


Laid Out Beneath The Stars

by ValeCimmerian



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Fluff, Pining, Stargazing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-07-09
Packaged: 2020-06-25 13:31:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19746739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ValeCimmerian/pseuds/ValeCimmerian
Summary: Crowley owes Aziraphale dinner, and decides to make it special





	Laid Out Beneath The Stars

Crowley opened the door of Aziraphale's bookshop, which in itself wasn't unusual. What was unusual was that it was 11:30 at night. Although Crowley didn't actually need to sleep, it was a habit he found quite refreshing and one he had fallen into somewhere in the mid-17th century (although that was after spending an entire century asleep). He now had a healthier sleeping pattern than most of humanity. Aziraphale, on the other hand, had almost never slept and preferred to spend his nights bent over the light of a candle, reading. Even after the invention of the new electric lighting he found there was something poetically beautiful about the light a flame cast on a page, the way the shadows began to dance higher and higher the lower it burned, and although it was a little bit of a fire hazard Aziraphale was careful. 

Aziraphale was in his usual place, at his desk with the candle burning, when Crowley opened his shop door. He jumped a little, something Crowley found deeply endearing, and blinked slowly at the sight of his demon standing, shoulder at an angle against the doorway and ankles crossed, arms hiding behind his back.   
'Crowley, my dear boy, what on earth are you doing here?'   
Crowley indulged himself for a moment longer as Aziraphale folded his silly (read: adorable) little reading glasses away, leaving the candlelight to catch just so on his bright blue eyes, Crowley's gaze taking in every inch of the angel bathed in soft light as he was.   
'I do believe I owe you lunch, angel. 1688 ring a bell?'  
'1688?' Then a pause came, and a faraway look into Aziraphale's face. 'Ah, yes. Glorious Revolution.'  
'And it was bloodless! Not so lucky with France, but then..'  
'Yes. Well. Sometimes there's no stopping them.'  
There was a deep moment of silence as each of them pondered the history they had shared and shaped, the lives unavoidably lost, and the burden Aziraphale carried. When a genuine frown of concern began to cross Aziraphale's face and his shoulders sagged, Crowley started speaking again.  
'So, I thought it was about time I caught up on that.'  
'Crowley, I dont know if you've noticed but its rather late out there. I can't imagine any good restaurant staying open this deep into the night.'   
'Ah! I have a plan, angel.'  
'A plan? Oh dear..' Aziraphale smiled slightly in gentle mockery, the genuine warmth beneath leaking through and betraying him.   
'Aadfkl- Angel, really? It was one time. My plans arent that bad.' Crowley's attempt at being offended was only half-hearted (and a damned blush crept up onto his half-lit cheeks). 'I've actually thought this one through'  
'Oh my, I feel honoured.'   
'Anyway. Dinner, angel?'   
Aziraphale carefully marked his place in the open book with a lace-edged bookmark, closing it decisively, and turning to beam at Crowey.  
'I don't see why not. Where had you in mind?'  
Crowley's mouth twitched into a dreadfully kissable smirk, the angles of his face only more elegant for the dim lighting. He brought a hand out from behind his back to show a wicker basket, tartan blanket peeking out the corner, grasped in his hand.   
'I'm making good on a promise and taking you on a picnic. Let's go angel.' Crowley offered his remaining hand to Aziraphale, who blew the candle out and then stood up smiling without it, and nodded slightly. Crowley made an awkward movement with his hand and put it back in his pocket, swinging around and walking towards the doorway, pushing it open with a rather dramatic flick. Aziraphale was distracted by the sway of his hips and bumped his head on the door frame as he left, clicking his fingers to lock up the bookshop while pondering what his demon could be doing. While taking him out places (not as a date, much to Aziraphale's despair) wasn't out of character, going somewhere new and unexplained was, and Aziraphale began to get a low, deep-seated worry that Crowley had something awful to tell him. 

Crowley threw (gently, but appearing to be carelessly) the picnic basket into the back seat of his Bentley. He slid in and tried to remember he didnt really need to breathe, and it was just his angel. Just Aziraphale, just another of the thousands of meals they'd had together. Just a literal angel, from the place he'd been cast out of, sat beside him and looking equally flustered and confused. He laughed a little shakily, turning a head to catch Aziraphale's eye.   
'Look at us, like we're teenagers, fumbling around one another. How long have we known each other angel?'' Crowley's voice was softer than usual.  
'6..6000 years.'   
'Exactly. Just relax, I owe you dinner so I'm taking you somewhere nice. You'll like it, I promise.'   
It wasn't entirely clear who Crowley was meant to be convincing, but it worked. The tension dropped a little from Aziraphale's shoulders as Crowley started the car and the familiar strains of Johann Sebastian Bach's 'Crazy Little Thing Called Love'. As he drove away, Crowley began to tap the steering wheel and hum along to the tune. Even Aziraphale, apparently transfixed on the passing lights, mouthed along with the words.  
'My dear, how far are we going?' Aziraphale dared to glance back at Crowley and was immediately magnetized by that jaw in the night time shadows, the flash of glinting sunglasses drawing him further in.  
'Oh, far enough.' He grinned a little. 'I can go faster if you like?'   
Aziraphale sighed and rolled his eyes a little, fingers imperceptibly tightening where they rested on his thighs.   
'If it gets us there quicker dearest, and if it makes you happy..' Crowley grinned wide at this. A couple of fanged teeth glinted at Aziraphale and the errant thought of what that might feel like to run his tongue over, to have it bite his lip, crossed his mind. (Only briefly, of course! It wouldnt do to be so...tempted, by a demon of all things.) Aziraphale shook away those thoughts rather unsuccessfully. 

As they raced along the motorway, turning off sharply down some apparently random lanes, rattling down them, Crowley looked at Aziraphale's tense, quiet face, and a hand migrated from the steering wheel to meet Aziraphale's on his thigh. The two met eyes briefly, over the top of Crowley's sunglasses. Aziraphale's blue eyes so fearful, Crowley's snake-like eyes gentle and comforting. Aziraphale took his hand. A singular, united breath sounded throughout the car as 'Somebody to Love' started up.

Neither of them were sure how long they drove like that, Crowley keeping his eyes on the road and Aziraphale keeping his eyes on Crowley, the occasional squeeze or a stroke of a thumb reassuring the other that they were very real, very much present, and very much Doing This. 

At some point, the car stopped. They sat there for a moment, then Aziraphale quirked a little smile at the corner of his mouth. Crowley wanted to kiss it.   
'Shall we, my dear? You do owe me dinner, after all.' Crowley relinquished his hand with great difficulty, and rushed to open the car door for his angel, basket in hand. He nodded his head, taking Aziraphale's hand in his like lady from a time gone by. 'Lead the way then.' And the smile his angel shot him was enough to light the darkened paths ahead. Tangled trees and bushes, a mess of growth and life, blocked their way until they turned and oh, here it is. The sloped side of a hill laid out before the sky like a blanket just for them, the burning spinning specs of stars above them so clear in the dark depths. Aziraphale's hand twists and tightens around Crowley's with a soft gasp. They walk a little way to the centre of the field. The grass was damp with what will later become morming dew, and the tartan blanket Aziraphale was sure came from his bedroom is very necessary. Crowley didn't quite want to let go, not yet, so a flick of his fingers sets the blanket neatly down and the array of food he out together arranges itself on the blanket. He tugs on Aziraphale's arm, gesturing down.   
'Shall we?'   
Aziraphale sits, leaning back and resting on his elbows. To one side is a fantastic spread of food, a variety of pastries and fruits laid next to several bottles of his favourite wine, and to the other side is sprawled his demon, also propped up on his elbows, hand intertwined with his own.   
'Do you know Crowley, I dont think I'm at all that hungry this minute.' He glanced at his demon.  
'What? Come on, I went to all that effort and you aren't even going to eat it?'  
Aziraphale smiled widely at him, and Crowley felt himself blush (he hoped it would be too dark for Aziraphale to see, but of course angelic eyesight said otherwise). He lay down, not entirely as smoothly as he hoped it would be.   
'Crowley my dear?'  
'Mmh?  
'Can we just watch the stars for a little while? It's so still and quiet here, and far clearer skies then we'll ever find in London.' Crowley squeezed the hand held in his own and relaxed back into the ground, one hand behind his head so he could look at Aziraphale's wondrous face as he gazed open-mouthed at the stars.   
'Of course Angel.'  
His angel took a deep breath. Contented.   
'For all that you say you're a demon, you really do have quite the capacity for beauty dear.' Crowley frowned a little. 'The stars, Crowley? You created them, or most of them, and they're beautiful.' What Aziraphale wanted to say was that Crowley was beautiful, one of the most beautiful creations on earth, but he didn't need to. Crowley felt it in the waves of love bursting out the angel and wrapping him in comforting warmth, in the gentle stroke of the fingers around his own, in the way Aziraphale smiled. And there, in the dark, laid out beneath the stars, Crowley smiled the truest smile he had smiled since he first fell for his angel.   
'Isn't it so beautiful, my dear?' Aziraphale stretched a hand out towards the sky, fingers splayed, then let it fall back to sit comfortably on his chest.   
'Absolutely breathtaking.' Crowley murmured, only he wasn't talking about the stars. Slowly he leaned closer to the angel, over their intertwined hands, to press a gentle and surprising kiss to the tip of his nose. Aziraphale's hand reached up to grab the lapel of his coat, stopping him from moving away, so they were almost touching. Their eyes almost met- Aziraphale vanished his glasses, and then they shared such a deep knowing look.  
'Does this mean..?'  
'I rather think it does my dear.' And Aziraphale pulled Crowley down on top of him, closing the distance and meeting his lips in a soft kiss that made Crowley melt, bring his spare hand up to tangle in those angelic curls. They stayed like that for a while. The demon pressed on top of the angel, legs tangled together beautifully, hands on one another's faces, spread out beneath the stars in love.


End file.
